


How We Know It's Home

by anneapocalypse



Series: Cesura [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Communication, F/F, Healing, Non-Explicit Sex, Reunion Sex, Reunions, RvB Ladies Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 03:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: Coming back to Chorus and Vanessa just feels right.A post-s15 fic written for RvB Ladies Week on tumblr.





	How We Know It's Home

**Author's Note:**

> Kimball facecanon comes from [misses-unicorn.](http://misses-unicorn.tumblr.com/post/95942138964/i-just-want-kimball-to-kick-felix-into-that)
> 
> A big shoutout to Thought whose fic [But Only When Skilfully Tied](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2721833) is still one of the most gorgeous examples of Chorus worldbuilding out there and which has inspired me a whole lot in my own Chorusbuilding and which I hope you will all read if you haven't.
> 
> Many thanks to [tuckerfuckingdidit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuckerfuckingdidit) for the beta read!

Chorus after the war, after the blockade and the peace talks, the treaty and the trade agreements, is practically unrecognizable to Carolina. To all of them, she supposes, because she’s not only one who breaks to a halt the minute she steps off the space elevator, staring. Tucker stops beside her, mutters “Damn” under his breath. Wash only makes a thoughtful noise, but she can see him looking over the city too, taking it all in.

More lights, for one thing. It’s morning now, just barely, but they came in over the pre-dawn city and rode the tether down from the newly-reopened spaceport, and Carolina stared out the window as the new capital spread beneath them, a sea of lights looking like a  _city_ instead of a husk. _Harmonia,_ the announcement said on the way down. When they left, it hadn’t yet been named.

 

She has to get directions to the Office of the President. There was no official Capitol building when they left, everyone working out of whatever salvaged office space they could find. Carolina remembers vividly the chaotic, frantic energy of trying to organize elections to fill the power vacuum, even as they were still settling into the old city—Chorus’s third largest one left mostly intact, though largely abandoned, by the war.

They let her in at the door, her only credentials _Freelancer, Agent Carolina_. She has no title, no official citizenship even, and yet Chorus ushers her back in like she’s home.

 

Kimball’s in a meeting when she arrives, unsurprisingly, and so Carolina takes a seat in the waiting area, idly contemplating the interior and the architecture of the building. It’s very colony-modern, definitely at least ten years old but no more than twenty-five, and cleaned up pretty nice. From what Vanessa’s told her, probably built sometime after the second wave of colonization. Before things got bad. There’s a lot of glass, big wide open windows, and the sense of space makes Carolina breathe a little easier, even as she mentally marks off every entry and exit point to the waiting area out of sheer force of habit.

It’s around 45 minutes before Kimball’s available. Carolina could easily take a walk downstairs, get a sandwich at the cafe on the ground level, but she ate on the transport and hard as it is to sit still and wait, taking a single step away seems harder.

So she waits. Takes out her datapad and skims the headlines in the meantime. The trade agreements that were part of the peace treaty are pretty controversial, which makes sense, Carolina supposes, given the roots of the war in economic disparity and who profited from the planet’s resources. Economics, politics, all that stuff Carolina’s never had a head for. Even Vanessa, not a soldier at heart, said it was a surprisingly big adjustment, after fighting for so long. Going back to trying to solve problems with words, with laws, with nonviolence. Back to believing that could work, and would.

 

She’s been growing more jittery she sits, bouncing her leg as inconspicuously as possible and trying not to watch the clock, and by the time she’s told the President will see her, her heart rate’s up and she has to steady herself with a deep breath before marching into Kimball’s office like she’s heading into a mission briefing. It’s stupid. But it’s been a long time. Longer than either of them meant it to be, probably. And so much has happened in between.

 

“Carolina,” Kimball says as she enters, already standing from her desk and coming around to meet her. The desk is glass too, set atop a fancy alloy frame, though the rest of the room is austere and there’s still a stack of crates in the corner yet to be unpacked. The walls are almost entirely window, though Carolina’s HUD analysis—she can’t help herself there—tells her they’re bulletproof, and tinted dark from the outside.

She notes all of that in a matter of seconds, before she takes her helmet off and her eyes find Vanessa’s. She’d be lying if she said she’d planned anything at all past this moment, but the look in Vanessa’s dark eyes, the almost startled urgency with which she says _Carolina,_ is the answer to a question Carolina couldn’t have found words to ask.

Carolina has the General—the _President_ , she has to get used to that—up against the inner wall of her office about five seconds after that.

 

“Carolina,” Vanessa says again, later—softer, and still catching her breath, a pretty sheen of sweat over her brown skin and the blue tips of her hair gone limp and falling in her eyes. There’s a note in her voice that says, _Slow down_ , and Carolina thinks, belatedly, that maybe she should have said something first, _before_ they shed their armor all over the floor and Vanessa came twice with her back against the wall and one knee over Carolina’s shoulder. Not exactly using her words. Made that mistake before, with Vanessa, and it came real close to ending things. It’s hard. Always been more of an action girl.

Vanessa lets out a short laugh, though, and Carolina decides she’s probably all right. “I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow. I would’ve met you at the spaceport, you know.”

“I know,” Carolina says automatically, even though she didn’t, not really, and the knowledge floods her chest with a quiet warmth. She folds her arms a little tighter around Vanessa—they’re still standing, Carolina’s back against the wall now, even though her knees have gone a little wobbly. “We caught an earlier flight. Figured I’d surprise you.”

Vanessa nuzzles her neck, and Carolina feels her smile. “Good surprise.”

 

“Still in armor,” Carolina notes, when they finally peel themselves apart and get dressed. Vanessa’s had a repaint job on hers, probably for political reasons, but with a few modifications, it’s still the same suit.

“Still in armor.” Vanessa buckles her breastplate back on. “I don’t love it, but it’s still a necessity. Maybe always will be.”

“Even after the election, huh.”

“I took 37 percent of the vote, and that was a huge accomplishment. That means 63 percent of Chorus wanted somebody else. The conservative candidate was a joke—” _(Conservative_ , so that’s what they’re calling the Fed holdouts these days.) “—but his platform still had substantial support. And the isolationist faction is only gaining momentum since their candidate lost to me.” Vanessa snorts. “Let me tell you, it’s very strange to be considered a moderate.”

Carolina shakes her head. “Politics.”

“Politics.” Vanessa shrugs, smiles. “It’s not so bad.”

Carolina wanders to the side window, crosses her arms over her chest as she looks out over the city. Lights, people walking on the streets, the monorails running. “Better you than me. Don’t know how you do it.”

“I don’t know how to not do it,” Vanessa says, moving to her side. Carolina wonders what she sees in this city. More than just the life and movement returned to it, this sort of phoenix of a society, risen against all odds, but in some ways still mired in the very conflicts that destroyed it. “It’s home, you know? The people you love even when they’re wrong. The place you stay and try to fix, even when it’s fundamentally broken.”

Is _that_ how you know, Carolina thinks. Doesn’t say it, though. Nods instead.

Vanessa shrugs. “I’ll never have the luxury of knowing there’s no one out there who wants me dead, but the likelihood of them succeeding has actually dropped considerably. It’s a jungle out there, still. But it’s better than war. Infinitely better.”

Carolina twists a strand of her hair around her finger, pulling until it hurts. “Guess we have that in common.”

Vanessa goes silent for a moment. “Which part?”

“Always gonna be someone who wants you dead.”

“Ah,” says Vanessa simply. Carolina feels a hand come to rest on her lower back, and shifts a millimeter closer. “I still don’t… know the whole story of what happened out there. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Carolina says honestly, and sighs. “I will, though, just. Rain check?”

Vanessa nods. “Deal. Anything I can do in the meantime?”

Carolina takes a full sidestep closer, wraps an arm around Vanessa’s waist. That little clunk of plate touching, that full-armored hug feeling, is still satisfying in a ridiculous way. “Be you. Be here.” She feels the low rumble of the monorail rushing by the building. Feels the city move under her feet. Alive and recovering. Like Chorus. Like all of them.

“I missed you,” Vanessa says, simply. Carolina swallows the lump that rises in her throat, and with it all the things that are still too hard to say, _I missed you too, god, so much._

“It’s good to be—” she says, and stops, looking for the word. Here. Back. With you. “Home. It’s good to be home.”


End file.
